Financial Integration:
Same-gender and
Mixed-gender Couples

Joanna R. Pepin

University of Toronto

Chandler Fairbanks

University at Buffalo (SUNY)

Income pooling is associated with

relationship stability
(Eickmeyer et al. 2019)
relationship quality
(Sassler & Addo, 2010)

A greater proportion of married mixed-gender couples pool money than married same-gender couples

Research Questions

Is the gap in income pooling accounted for by variation in demographic characteristics?

Do the associations between pooling and relationship stability and quality vary by the gender composition of the couple?

NCHAT

National Couples’ Health and Time Study 2020-2021

a nationally representative sample of U.S. couples aged 20–60
N = 3,348

Key Variables

Dependent Variable:
(0) Not pooling all money and (1) Full pooling system
Couple Type:
(1) Man with woman, (2) Woman with man, (3) Man with man, and (4) Woman with woman
Marital Status:
(1) Cohabiting (2) Married

Relationship Quality Scales

Instability

feeling trapped
think will eventually breakup
thought relationship is in trouble

Dissatisfaction

happiness with relationship
warm and comfortable relationship
relationship is rewarding
relationship satisfaction

Negativity

little arguments escalated
partner criticism
partner viewed words or actions negatively
one of us withdrew when argued

Findings

Key descriptive statistics

	Man with woman	Woman with man	Man with man	Woman with woman
Married	82	81	52	67
Parent	44	47	4.1	21
White (NH)	55	57	68	65
Both full-time	46	41	47	44
Instability (0-16)	2.12 (3.10)	2.11 (3.25)	2.95 (3.52)	2.36 (2.98)
Dissatisfaction (0-21)	5.7 (4.5)	6.1 (4.7)	6.7 (4.2)	6.3 (5.2)
Negativity (0-15)	3.1 (3.2)	3.2 (3.6)	3.4 (3.3)	3.7 (3.2)
Observations	(N = 1,133)	(N = 1,281)	(N = 573)	(N = 361)

Same-gender couples less likely than mixed-gender couples to report full financial pooling

	Odds Ratio	S.E.
Reference: Man with woman
Woman with man	0.94	(0.11)
Man with man	0.61	(0.14)	*
Woman with woman	0.49	(0.11)	**

Married women-women couples less likely to pool all money than mixed-gender couples

Probability of full pooling

Women-women couples are less likely to pool all money than mixed-gender couples

at average levels of __________

Variation in probability of pooling by couple-type and relationship scales

Starting with the first panel on your left, it’s not surprising, for all couples, the odds of pooling money were significantly lower with greater instability.

Moving to the middle panel, the same pattern is present for the relationship dissatisfaction scale, with one exception.
Among men partnered with men, higher levels of dissatisfaction were associated with greater odds of pooling money.

In the final panel on the right, we see negativity and pooling money showed a positive rather than negative association, across all couple types.

The positive slopes are counter to theory, which makes us wonder if it says something about the directionality of the association?
Could it be that pooling finances leads to more negative interactions among all couple types and dissatisfaction among men-men couples?

Implications

Couple-type gap in pooling is not explained by demographic differences, nor necessarily indicative of lower relationship stability and quality.
Relationship stability and quality might be differently associated with financial integration among all couples.

Thank you!

Joanna R. Pepin
University of Toronto

Chandler Fairbanks
University at Buffalo (SUNY)

Slides:

Probability of full financial pooling by work-family arrangement